Thursday, January 29, 2009
What a vote for Obama brought to Jews who support Israel
Here's a note to the 78% of American Jews that voted for Barack Obama. The "Other Shoe" has been thrown at Israel. The President is naming Samantha Power to a senior foreign policy/national security position.
Professor who slammed Clinton will be Obama aide
WASHINGTON (AP) — Samantha Power, the Harvard University professor who earned notoriety for calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a "monster" while working to elect Barack Obama president, will take a senior foreign policy job at the White House, The Associated Press has learned.Officials familiar with the decision say Obama has tapped Power to be senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, a job that will require close contact and potential travel with Clinton, who is now secretary of state. NSC staffers often accompany the secretary of state on foreign trips.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Power's position, as well as that of other senior NSC positions, have not yet been announced. One official said the announcements would be made in the near future.Friends of Israel may remember Power for a different reason. She is a strong believer in the anti-Semitic notion that Jews Control foreign policy. She has also said that she would recommend that the US SHOULD SEND IN TROOPS TO IMPOSE A SOLUTION ON ISRAEL.
Click on
ISRAEL INVADING ADVOCATE NAMED CHIEF OBAMA ADVISER
Read at the post at http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2009/01/israel-hating-samantha-power-named-key.html
Islamic Danger 2U: ‘Change’ in Indo-US relations
‘Change’ in Indo-US relations
Ajoy Bose
OPED Thursday, January 29, 2009
http://www.dailypioneer.com/152931/‘Change’-in-Indo-US-relations.html
Unlike in the past, Washington and Beijing may be on the same page on Pakistan and could join hands in restoring some kind of order in that country. For New Delhi, this will be a bitter pill to swallow, considering how prickly we have been in the past about the China-Pakistan axis against India. We must, therefore, prepare for ‘change’"
More at . . .
http://islamicdanger2u.blogspot.com/2009/01/change-in-indo-us-relations.html
Bulletin of Jew Hatred--January 28, 2008
Facts without comments--we collect the dots; you connect them
By Bill Warner
politicalislam.com
Summaries
Two synagogues and a Jewish school in the Chicago area were vandalized on Jan. 10. The graffiti included hate messages directed at Israel for its invasion of the Gaza Strip. A week before, bomb threats were made to several Chicago-area Jewish schools. And on Dec. 29, a man threw a Molotov cocktail at the outside wall of Temple Sholom of Chicago.
In Carmel, California, five youths were arrested for vandalizing three (Jewish) peers' homes over the weekend and face possible hate crime charges.
Monroe, New York - Monroe Village Police have charged a 14-year-old Monroe youth in connection with etching a 20-foot-by-20-foot swastika in the snow on one of the downtown ponds where people skate.
A Brockton (MA) man accused in a rape and double murder reportedly told police that he intended to kill as many Jews as possible, then kill himself, in what he called a fight "for a dying race."
Police say anti-Semitic graffiti was found scrawled along the walls of a Crown Heights subway station.
Some passages from school textbooks in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia incite hatred and violence. The offending passages include those that incite hatred and violence against Jews.
The Jewish community in Golders Green, London, has been the target of further anti-Semitic attacks.
The Catalunya government in Spain has called off the ceremony marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was scheduled to take place on January 27, citing the Israeli offensive in Gaza as the reason.'
Anti-Semitic fliers were left in three synagogues in Venezuela.
Protestors in Sweden gathering to support Israel were pelted with eggs and bottles and tear-gas, then dispersed by police
A synagogue in the Czech city of Trebic was sprayed by an unknown vandal with the slogan "Jews, return Gaza, murderers of kids".
In Italy, a new survey finds that 44% of Italians are admittedly anti-Semitic.
Iranian state television has come to the conclusion that Harry Potter is a Zionist plot
In Romford (UK), a synagogue has come under attack from anti-Semitic vandals.
A Norwegian diplomat . . . sent out e-mails from her Foreign Ministry email account equating Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza with the systematic mass murder of six million Jews by the Nazis.
Kosher warehouse hit in Paris blaze
Videos
Palestinian children celebrate martyrdom and Jew hatred at Carnival: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAolwtAaM3U
Hamas video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWIDZ7Jpdqg
“The Jews lived as Dhimmis among us”:http://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=11266401&msgid=212009&act=Y1TQ&c=162528&admin=0&destination=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D-BH5SCUg3r8%26eurl=Jews Get Out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plzeK9Q02zs&eurl=
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Editor in chief: Bill Warner
This material is not copyrighted. Please forward. You may remove the header and the by-line, if that suits your purposes.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
WHAT ISRAEL CAN EXPECT FROM THE OBAMINATION
"Israel is a strong ally of the United States. They will not stop being a strong ally of the United States. And I will continue to believe that Israel's security is paramount," he said. "But I also believe that there are Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side."
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=8566
- Israel will understand this election was the end of any type of assistance, military or otherwise, from the U.S., and will stop holding back their defense at the request of the American administration. Look for a first strike on Iran soon, as well as increased activity by the Israeli military in general. Israel is on her own now, and God help us all because of it.
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=8607
Click on http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024603.php
US-Russia-Israel Conspiracy Did it Happen? Could it happen?
Could it happen?
Posted By Obadiah Shoher On January 25, 2009 @ 9:02 am
In relations with Israel
3 Comments
I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories, but something is wrong with Israeli and Russian relations with America.
Israeli rulers dance the American line to an incredible extent. Israel has depended on the Soviet Union and then France to the extent much larger than our current dependence on the US, but never submitted to their minute whims. Looking at the Israeli government sabotaging the peace process, drugging the negotiations when just everything seems to be agreed upon, the only conclusion is that it is under overwhelming pressure. It must have taken immense pressure to break venerable Yitzhak Shamir, the former leader of [1] LEHI terrorist group, into acquiescing [2] to the peace process. Forcing Menahem Begin, the former leader of ETZEL terrorist group, into the Camp David giveaway of Sinai, also could not be easy. But at least in Begin’s case there were arguments both pro and contra the deal, and Shamir’s concessions were minuscule and symbolic only. One can feel that the pressure on Olmert was of a different order, the sort of the pressure that made Arik the Bulldozer abruptly change his life-long attitude and destroy [3] Gush Katif rather than the Gaza City.
Olmert started military incursions based on the American approval, and stopped them upon the American command. He ordered cease-fire with Hamas to allow Rice an opportunity for a calm meeting with Jordan’s Abdullah, and resumed peace talks under the fire as Rice requested.
It’s the same with Russia. Putin, ostensibly an ultra-nationalist and anti-American politician, continued the 1993 US-Russia agreement on dismantling Russian nukes and shipping uranium and plutonium to the United States at throwaway prices. The deal is a hyper-sensitive issue in Russia, as the “nuclear shield” that nation prided itself with is transferred to the stereotypical enemy. Not that Putin really cares about a decade-old obscure agreement: he imposed moratorium on the CFE treaty, creating furor in the West without actually affecting American interests.
The US Administration played along with Putin on the ABM treaty when Bush insisted on installing a micro-ABM (anti-ballistic missile) system in Poland and Czech. Such a system is worthless except for a political reason: bolstering Putin’s domestic popularity, allowing him a relevant anti-American issue to rant about.
The US Administration reacted extremely mildly to Russian war in Chechnya, essentially, a series of massacres. When Putin’s FSB/KGB blew apartment buildings to blame it on Chechens and launch the war, the Administration kept silent though the recriminating evidence was overwhelming.
Shortly thereafter, the World Trade Center was attacked in a rather surprising manner, and America invaded Iraq. The oil prices predictably skyrocketed, and so did the oil corporations’ profits.
URL to article: http://samsonblinded.org/blog/could-it-happen.htm
URLs in this post:
[1] LEHI terrorist group: http://samsonblinded.org/blog/most-arabs-are-nice.htm
[2] to the peace process: http://samsonblinded.org/blog/we-need-a-respite-from-peace.htm
[3] Gush Katif rather: http://samsonblinded.org/blog/remember-the-gush-katif.htm[4]
Monday, January 26, 2009
OBAMA'S "NEW" MIDDLE EAST ENVOY
http://the-jew-in-yellow.blogspot.com/2009/01/obamas-new-middle-east-envoy.html
Comment to
Obama's ME Envoy - More of the Same: Obama Wants Gaza Borders Open
By Maggie M. Thornton
http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2009/01/obamas-me-envoy-more-of-same-obama.html
Read it at THE JEW IN YELLOW NO MORE
http://the-jew-in-yellow.blogspot.com/2009/01/obamas-new-middle-east-envoy.html
Dealing with Islamist terror - Barry Rubin
Hamas and Hizbullah, Iran, Muslim Brotherhood, and even Islamist impersonator Syria, are not persuadable through dialogue. They glory in death and won't rest till they achieve 'total victory'
David Grossman, an Israeli writer, has penned an essay entitled "Israel's success in Gaza only proves it is strong, not right." Aside from the irony of his being Israeli, Grossman's ideas are the ultimate expression of Western reaction to the terrorist -extremist challenge.
To his credit, Grossman notes there have been Palestinian 'crimes and mistakes', that the other side prefers violence, and that ignoring this "would be tantamount to belittling and condescending to them, as if they were not mature adults with minds of their own, responsible for their own decisions and failures."
But, he concludes, since Israel is stronger, it somehow controls the conflict's level of violence, able to be "calming it down and even bringing it to an end." How, he asks, will peace "ever come if we fail to comprehend just how grave is the responsibility that lies on our shoulders" for achieving it?
Grossman is upset that Israelis feel united and confident, complaining about, "Those who have taught us over the years to scoff at belief in peace and any hope for change in our relations with the Arabs. Those who have convinced us that the Arabs understand only force, and therefore that is the only language we can use in our dealings with them."
Continued at http://islamicdangerfu.blogspot.com/2009/01/dealing-with-islamist-terror-barry.html
Hindu Opinion: A Just War Against Hamas in Gaza
[quote]
i used to be a supporter of the palestinians, and i used to harangue my israeli classmate iddo about them. i have since reformed myself. israelis are the ones who are victimized, you whom the mohammedans and the anti-semitic europeans wish to wipe out. the arabs couldn't care two hoots about palestinians -- they will fight the jews to the last palestinian. and a lot of europeans (who have absorbed anti-jew sentiment with mother's milk) will applaud.
---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Kanchan
http://www.dailypioneer.com/147601/A-just-war-against-Hamas-in-Gaza.html
[close quote]
http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2009/01/kanchan-gupta-just-war-against-hamas.html
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Jew Hunting in Sweden: Islamics need no license
A pro-Israel rally in the southern Swedish city of Malmö descended into violent chaos as an illegal counter-demonstration went on the offensive.
What was remarkable was that the illegal counter-demonstration was allowed by the police to come so close to the pro-Israel rally that the attackers were able to slice through the power supply cable to the PA system. They also got close enough to throw rockets, stones, eggs and glass bottles, eventually forcing the rally to abandon its programme at the insistence of the police.
In Malmö, Sweden, in 2009, Jews are running for their lives via back-streets while an insufficiently prepared and/or insufficiently interested police force allow violent attackers to swarm over the Jews’ meeting-place.
Among the rally participants were survivors of the Holocaust. One cannot even begin to imagine the images flying through their minds as they fled under a hail of missiles with the screams of the mob ringing in their ears. “Death to the Jews! Death to the Israelis” intermingled with the increasingly frenzied barks of police dogs, reawakening terrifying recollections from a not too distant past.
This is Sweden, the year is 2009. A Sweden where the mob rules and where people in police uniform bark orders.
The people responsible for this crushing defeat of democracy are not primarily the police, although there may be some reason for questioning their preparedness; the people who are responsible the media, who for years have pursued a virulently anti-Israel and borderline anti-Semitic campaign via the newspapers, radio and TV.
The power base of the mob has shown its power. Now it is up to Parliament to show its power, to demonstrate whether it will return Sweden to the course of democracy.
Or whether it will sit idly by as the country slides towards a situation that was last seen in Europe 70 years ago.
Tuesday January 27 is Sweden’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the murder of six million Jews by other racist anti-democrats not so very long ago. It is to be hoped that Tuesday will not also be hijacked by an anti-democratic, racist mob, while uniformed police protect the “basic human rights” of the violent protesters – the explanation actually given by a police officer as the Jews were removed from their venue and the area was handed over to the jubilant pro-Palestinian and pro-Hizbollah protesters.
Today in Sweden a terrible echo from seventy years ago was heard loud and clear.
http://www.ilyameyer.com/2009/01/swedish-paradise-lost.html
Unfortunate Remarks about Israel by Joe Lieberman
In his "Remembering Rabbi Hollander," Sultan Knish
mentions the late rabbi's assessment of Senator Joseph Lieberman:
[quoting Rabbi Hollander]
This story recently came to mind when Senator Joseph Lieberman was in Israel and announced as loudly as he could that the Jews have no right to live on "occupied territory." We are painfully ashamed because very recently, a non-Jew, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, defended Israel, and pointedly referred to the West Bank as "so-called occupied territory." Senator Lieberman, who calls himself an Orthodox Jew, does not stop from pontificating that part of the Holy Land given by G-d to the Jews is forbidden to Jews.
It is difficult to have such high expectation from our modern American Joseph. Yet, one would still expect some humility, some integrity and some fairness in judging who is at fault in the current terror war in the State of Israel. Lieberman deplored the "desperate" humanitarian condition of the Palestinians without stating clearly that the sole responsibility for this "desperate humanitarian condition" of the Palestinians lies with the Arabs, who train their sons and daughters to kill themselves in the process of killing Jews.
[close quote of Rabbi Hollander]
This shows how far the current Joseph has drifted from his Biblical namesake. He wears his alleged Orthodoxy on his sleeve and uses it as a campaigning point. This is most unbecoming and un-Jewish.
[close quote]
Now, Joe Lieberman is not alone in his appraisal of the Israel-Arab situation, and he is among the most avid supporters of Israel amongst politicians, but one could expect less bleeding-of-the heart for the "Palestinians (Arabs)."
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/01/remembering-rabbi-hollander.html
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Toward a Jewish Foreign Policy
Inasmuch as President Barack Obama is expected to launch a new American foreign policy, one more favorable to the Islamic world, it may be worthwhile to set forth the paradigm of a new Israeli foreign policy, one that is distinctively Jewish. Not that I expect any foreseeable Israeli to have the intellectual and moral qualifications to pursue a truly Jewish foreign policy. What follows, therefore, is intended solely for pedagogical purposes.
1. Israel, the teacher of ethical monotheism, is supposed to set an example to mankind. Accordingly, Israel will not establish diplomatic relations with any tyrannical regime. To do so is to dignify tyrants and perpetuate their unjust rule over their people. Courting tyrannies demeans Israel and lowers the moral standards of the Jewish people. Hence, contrary to what is implicit President Obama’s Inaugural Address, Israel will avoid moral equivalence.
2. The Torah, which makes distinctions between good and bad regimes, warns against seeking relations with wicked ones. (See Numbers 25:1-3, 17-18; Jeremiah 10:23.) In this connection, note that Middle East expert Daniel Pipes admits that Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt—a military dictatorship—has been a failure. Even before the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Israel’s establishment of diplomatic relations with Egypt was followed by an increase of anti-Semitism in Egypt’s state-controlled media.
3. Courting recognition of despotic Muslim or Arab regimes only magnifies their contempt of Jews and Israel. By not seeking relations with such regimes, Israel will cease to be diplomatically dependent on the United States. “Praiseworthy is the man who walked not in the counsel of the wicked, and stood not in the path of the sinful, and sat not in the session of scorners” (Psalms 1:1).
4. Consistent with the preceding, Israel should resign from the United Nations. Tens of millions of American have participated in a movement — “Get US out of the UN!” They perceive this organization as anti-American. Surely, Israel can have no higher opinion of this anti-Semitic organization, of which the following remarks are relevant:
a. Haifa University professor David Bukay has this to say of the UN: “This is an organization that has never advanced peace and never prevented war; this is an organization that works for its own sake alone, and strives against the values for which it was set up. This is an organization that surrendered to the dictates of the Arab and Islamic states, against the social-economic interests of the Third World countries.”
b. American diplomat Fred Fleitz’s book, Peacekeeping Fiascoes of the 1990s: Causes, Solutions, and U.S. Interests, provides a comprehensive and highly critical assessment of the UN. Among other debacles, he shows how the failed UN mission in Bosnia led to unmitigated atrocities; how the UN debacle in Somalia emboldened terrorists the world over; how the UN operation in Cambodia enabled a ruthless dictator, Hun Sen, to consolidate and retain power in that country.
c. The policy of the UN, says Caroline Glick, “has been to advance anti-Semitism by systematically and illegally discriminating against the Jewish state all the time and everywhere…. It cannot be regarded as a body responsible for enforcing international law, because in its systematic discrimination against Israel, it stands in breach of international law as embodied in its own charter's determination that all member states are to be treated equally.”
d. The vast majority of the countries represented in the UN are dictatorships. They should never have been admitted to, or allowed to remain in, the UN, since they violate Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to take part in the Government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.” If Israel does not resign from the UN, it should introduce resolutions calling for the democratization or expulsion of any member that violates the UN Charter. (I have especially in mind Muslim and Arab regimes such as Iran and Syria,)
e. Israel’s having a forum at the UN is of dubious value. If the UN cannot be reformed, better that Israel remain true to its biblical reputation as a nation that stands apart.
5. Consistent with Jewish law, Israel will not export arms to any foreign nation except under extreme circumstances. Generally speaking, international arms sales promote war, sustain tyrannies, and impoverish people.
6. Given weapons of mass destruction, no nation — certainly not minuscule Israel — can afford to wait to be attacked before it retaliates. Accordingly, Israel will pursue a pre-emptive war strategy.
a. The Government will therefore develop a strategy designed to uproot terrorist organizations in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The inane and immoral policy of “self-restraint” toward Arab terrorism will be terminated.
b. In accordance with Amendment 11B of the Law and Administrative Ordinance of 1967, the Government should apply Israeli law to any area of the Land of Israel that comes under the control of the IDF. By a simple order, the Government can thus bring Judea, Samaria, and Gaza within the jurisdiction of the State (as it did with respect to eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights).
7. The Government will comport itself in such a way as to enhance Israel’s dignity and to sanctify the Name of God.
a. The Government should therefore terminate U.S. military aid, which amounts to less than 1.5 percent of Israel’s Gross National Product.
b. The Government will insist that all nations having diplomatic relations with Israel move their embassies to Jerusalem or cease having them on the land of the Jewish people.
Why was the Pollard clemency bid dismissed?
While this may sound even-handed, it is not if you consider that most of the other high profile petitions for pardons came from people who are not even in prison! Some never served any time, or they did time years ago and now they seek a pardon simply to restore some of their civil rights. Others have yet to stand trial, but hope to pre-empt a sentence by having a pardon wipe out their crime. Few petitioners are actually in prison and they are serving relatively short sentences.
Only Jonathan is in his 24th year of a life sentence for an offense that has a median sentence of 2 to 4 years.
When President Bush chose to ignore Pollard's petition along with all of the other petitions filed by those who are not prison nor in peril, he effectively compounded the injustice.
If the Government of Israel had weighed in on Jonathan's behalf with President Bush in a meaningful way, perhaps the end result might have been different. But that was not the case. Even after 24 years, the abandonment and betrayal of an agent in peril continues. Olmert, Livni, Barak and the whole gang remain devoted to those operations that will secure their own seats of power, and have little concern for the average Israeli, let alone concern for captives like Pollard or Shalit.
Israeli President Peres received pleas both publicly and privately for his intervention on behalf of Pollard. He managed to deflect them all.
So what next?
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=42418
http://www.JonathanPollard.org
Monday, January 19, 2009
File this under under Tough Sh*t
Tevet 21, 5769, 17 January 09 09:02
by Maayana Miskin(IsraelNN.com)
A Palestinian Authority Arab who stoned cars in Samaria was killed by one of his own rocks, police have concluded. A Jewish man held in connection with the death has been released.
The Arab teenager hurled heavy stones at Israeli-owned vehicles along a Samaria highway last Tuesday evening. He managed to hit one car, which was driven by a resident of the nearby town of Emmanuel.
Fearing further attacks, the driver fired a single shot in the air to frighten away the stone-thrower. He then contacted local security officers to report both the attack and his own response.
A short time later, Israeli paramedics received a report of an Arab teen found unconscious and badly wounded next to a highway. The teen suffered a serious head injury that appeared to be a bullet wound. Medical personnel rushed to the scene but were unable to save the young Arab, who died a short time later.
Police originally believed that the resident of Emmanuel who reported firing in the air had in fact fired at his attacker, killing him. The man was arrested and questioned. However, an initial forensic report showed that the attacker had not been killed by a bullet, and the detainee was released.
A final forensic report, released over the weekend, showed that the attacker was killed when a stone he threw hit the car driven by the man from Emmanuel. The stone hit the car's tire and bounced back at high speed, hitting the attacker and leaving him with a fatal head injury.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/
© Copyright IsraelNationalNews.com
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The Mental Impairment* of Israel's Leadership
but now they made another move that shows they are truly insane
IDF Spokesman: IDF to allow attacks against Israeli civilians but not Israeli soldiers
. . . in light of the ceasefire, IDF forces operating inside the Gaza Strip face stricter rules of engagement.
He gave as an example of the stricter rules that the IDF did not strike a rocket launcher positioned between two schools that fired rockets towards Israel.
The news anchor declined to ask Benayahu why the IDF saw it fit to allow rocket attacks against Israeli civilians when human shields might be hurt but did not apply the same restriction when it came to the defense of IDF forces.
Read the whole sad mess at
IDF Spokesman: IDF to allow attacks against Israeli civilians but not Israeli soldiers
and
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made the following remarks:
"At 02:00 this morning, IDF forces ceased firing in the Gaza Strip, by order
of the political echelon. . . . The decision leaves Israel with the
freedom to respond and resume firing if our enemies, the various terrorist
organizations in the Gaza Strip, continue their attacks.
This morning, some of them have continued shooting and have thereby proved what we warned of in advance - the ceasefire is fragile and must be reconsidered minute by
minute, hour after hour.
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3
AP - Israeli troops, some smiling and dancing, began to withdraw from Gaza Sunday after their government and Hamas militants declared an end to a three-week war. But neither side achieved long-term goals and the burden of consolidating the fragile calm fell to world leaders.
The bad news for Israel: press releases, photo ops and all the wishful thinking in the world isn't going to stop the flow of weapons from Egypt to Gaza.
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=42381
______________________
*damage: the occurrence of a change for the worse wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn -
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Once Again, Israel Caves . . .
In the past Israel has had to stop short of full victory in order to accommodate “world opinion” as expressed through the arm-twisting of the United States.
read all about it at
Gates of Vienna: A Unilateral Ceasefire in Gaza
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The world and Those "Sensitive Jews"
Posted By Obadiah Shoher
On January 11, 2009 @ 9:38 am
In Shoher's musings 21 Comments
The Gaza operation underscored significant changes in attitudes around Jews. Israeli Arabs were not afraid to riot in response to a war abroad. Even Livni now accepts the need to transfer the fifth column to its own area.
Though the world responded in its usual anti-Semitic manner and applied pressure to end the violence only when Israel took action against it, so far the condemnations are remarkably quiet – and would have been still quieter if Israel had paid no attention to them. Instead, sensitive Jews listen to countries like Russia - which bombed Chechen and Georgian towns while rejecting any criticism but lashed out against Israel.
The world’s mild response doesn’t indicate that it accepts the Israeli right to defense. Nor is the world concerned about rising Islamic militancy (Hezbollah is well received in European capitals). Rather, the political establishments of Europe an and Arab countries alike oppose Hamas because it is a true revolutionary movement. Unlike various putschists and Latin American partisans, Hamas seeks to bring a real change: an honest government based on non-Western principles. Unlike European parties which buy their way to power with media ads and don’t differ from each other in practice, Hamas is genuinely different - and popular. Now, one might not like the Taliban-style Palestinian leaders, but by any moral gauge they stand head and shoulders above corrupt European politicians and Fatah gangsters.
Egypt is isolated in the Arab world for its all-out collusion with Israel against Hamas. Mubarak’s government leans to Israel because Hosni needs American approval to pass the reins to his son Gamal, suppress the Muslim Brotherhood, and prevent democratic elections which would bring the Islamist group to power.
The two-state solution is increasingly recognized as obsolete. World leaders realize that Hamas cannot be eradicated. If the Egyptian government failed to extirpate the Muslim Brotherhood with all kinds of unseemly measures, Israel has still fewer chances with its offshoot Hamas. Dependent on Iran and true to Muslim values, Hamas would neither settle with Israel any time soon, nor allow Fatah to do so. Since Bush Sr., and especially Clinton, the American political bureaucracy has dispelled with Carteresque ideas of Palestinian freedom fighters and increasingly see them as vile terrorists no good at diplomatic rounds. The Palestinian issue continues to lose popularity among liberals, and Jewish liberals seem to realize that “two states for two peoples” equalizes Jewish people with insignificant Levantine Arabs.
Saudi Arabia, the biggest lobbyist for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, has enough worries with nuclear Iran and pays scarce attention to Levant. The Jewish government realizes that Israeli Arabs - a third of Israel’s young - are no less a demographic threat than the West Bank Arabs, and disengagement from Judea and Samaria solves nothing. Negotiations with Fatah over the settlement blocs are deadlocked: evacuating the 150,000 Jews is politically impossible, and Jewish and Arab villages are so interspersed that separating them with a border is infeasible.
Israel has a small hope to be left alone and for the status quo to continue.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article printed from Samson Blinded: http://samsonblinded.org/blog
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Jews are repelled by the idea of Victory
Permalink http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/we-dont-love-the-smell-of-napalm-in-the-morning/
by Bill Warner]
We Don't Love the Smell of Napalm in the Morning
I went to an "Israel Solidarity Gathering for Peace" at a local synagogue. The title says it all. This was not a rally, but a gathering. (No, we do not want to get anybody fired up or pumped up.) This was to be a quiet gathering of intelligent, prosperous, and respectful people. From the look in the room there were no people there who could wield a weapon or throw a punch. They don't even want to know such a person.
Several of my Jewish friends were not there for various reasons. There was a big game on the boob tube and Sunday afternoon is for personal interests. The room was vacant of the 20-30 year old crowd and had a token smattering of children.
Kind people talked about the damage that Israel had sustained over the last eight years. Hamas are bad guys who used women and children for human shields. But there was only one mention of political Islam. One speaker mentioned that "moderate" Muslims have to rein in the "extremist" Muslims. He did not make any mention of how or why this would happen.
They said that the Israelis had bent over backward to avoid trouble. Children came up and talked about how wonderful they found Israel during their visit there. Yada, yada, yada.
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning," comes from an over-the-top officer in Apocalypse Now. There are people who will run towards a fight and there are those who run from a fight. These people were running from a fight. They do not want to smell victory in the morning. Victory reeks of oppression and these people don't want to be oppressors. Victim is the comfort zone. They weren't actually that comfortable with victim, but they were less comfortable with victory and the smell of napalm in the morning. Victim won by default.
In an hour's time, the word victory was not mentioned. This was a gathering for Peace. The word victory brings up a fight and a fight implies an enemy. And too much talk about an enemy might bring up dreadful questions. Such as: who is the enemy of the Jews? The only acceptable enemies of the Jews are the KKK, neo-Nazis and conservatives. No one else gets a mention.
All of this fits in with a modern day liberal concept of the sacred victim and how the victim is the winner in any social argument. These Jews think that if they plead their victim case everyone will realize that they are the moral winners. Victim is good. Unfortunately, Islam does not share the same ethical code as the Jews. Islam never grieves over its victims.
The last gathering by the Jews was about the torture/slaughter of the Jews in Mumbai. But there was no mention of Mumbai at the Peace Gathering. The reason is simple. There is no connection between Gaza and Mumbai. That is the official dogma. Each event of violence is unrelated to the next event of violence. There is also no connection between the rising Jew hatred around the world and Islam. Jew hatred can be mentioned as long as you don't mention Islam. Or, if you do mention Islam, you must say that those haters aren't real Muslims. It seems that every rabbi knows a "nice" Muslim who proves that Islam is good for the Jews. No ideology can be mentioned.
To aid in peace, one rabbi is leading an exchange of children for classes between the mosque and his synagogue. The Muslim children will learn how Jews respect them and want to live in peace. There will be no mention to the Jewish children about how Mohammed assassinated, mass executed the Jews of Medina, or how he tortured Jewish leaders to death. There will be no history of how Mohammed attacked the Jews of Khaybar, took their wealth, and land and made them dhimmis (semi-slaves of Islam). Jews were the first dhimmis and lived as dhimmis for 1400 years. The rabbi is ignorant of this doctrine and history and the Jewish children will remain as ignorant as he is.
Actually, there was one person in the room who mentioned victory. But he said it as he shuffled out leaning on his cane. He said, "You get peace from fighting. Kill the enemy until they are defeated. Peace will come after victory." I'll bet when he was young he knew what "wielding a weapon" meant. But his replacements coming up behind him don't want victory. They want peace and no enemies. What they will get is no peace and an enemy they refuse to acknowledge.
Bill Warner
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Arab parties disqualified from elections
www.imra.org.il
from http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3654866,00.html
Central Elections Committee determines Balad, United Arab List-Ta'al parties ineligible to run in February 2009, on grounds that they don't recognize the state and call for armed conflict against it. Tibi: This is a racist country
Aviad Glickman
The party lists for the Arab parties Balad and United Arab List-Ta'al have been disqualified from running in Israel's upcoming elections in February, the country's Central Elections Committee ruled Monday, following a heated meeting.
Balad was disqualified by a vote of 26 to three, with one abstention, while 21 committee members voted in favor of disqualifying the United Arab List-Ta'al, with eight members voting against and two members abstaining. The Central Elections Committee is comprised of members of all party factions.
During the meeting, MK Ahmad Tibi (UAL-Ta'al) addressed the ongoing operation in Gaza, saying, "we object to targeting civilians and you are committing genocide in Gaza. You're murdering children."
MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu) responded by saying, "We thought you were a friend of Israel and therefore we didn't question your party list. Where were you for the past eight years when Sderot was under attack?"
Representatives of the Arab parties walked out of the committee meeting when a vote in favor of their disqualification appeared imminent. Shortly afterwards, there was a heated confrontation between Tibi, along with Balad Chairman Jamal Zahalka on one side, and MK David Tal (Kadima).
"You drink Palestinian blood. You are a racist," Zahalka said to Tal. "You went to war as an elections campaign strategy," added Tibi. "Every vote for Kadima is a bullet in the chest of a Palestinian child."
Tibi later told the press in response to the decision that "this is a racist country. We are accustomed to these types of struggles and we will win." Tibi had expected the support of the eight Kadima members of the committee.
"This decision strives for a Knesset without Arabs that will only lead to the increased solidarity between the Arab public and its leadership," he added.
Zahalka likewise said that he is not surprised by the decision "because the vote was taken for political motives due to the war atmosphere... The committee members sought to increase their popularity at our expense on the backdrop of the elections."
"Labor representatives bent to pressure that was exerted on (Defense Minister and party chairman) Ehud Barak," Zahalka claimed.
MKs Zahalka (L) and Tibi during meeting (Photo: Dudi Vaaknin)
On the other side of the spectrum, Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman said, "Now that it has been decided that the Balad terrorist organization will not be able to run, the first battle is over."
Lieberman added, "The next battle is making Balad illegal because it is a terrorist organization whose objective is harming the State of Israel."
Yisrael Beiteinu is one of three separate parties that petitioned the Central Elections Committee over the past several weeks to disqualify Balad, the others being the Jewish Home party and Itay Furman, a former member of the Shinui party.
A test for the High Court
All three motions claimed that Balad must be disqualified on grounds that it does not recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, and that it advocates an armed conflict against it. Israel's High Court of Justice, in the past, has overturned votes to disqualify Balad from national elections that were based on similar grounds.
"The High Court of Justice is the body to make a final decision. We're used to these types of struggles and used to winning them and I'm sure the decision by the Central Elections Committee will only increase solidarity for the Arab parties," Tibi said.
As of Sunday night, Balad had not decided whether it would appeal to the High Court, but did threaten to boycott elections if the decision is not overturned.
"If Balad, at the end of the day, is disqualified, it will create a deep rift between the State and the Arab population," a party representative said.
Labor Secretary-General Eitan Cabel told Ynet that the party had not planned on voting in favor of Balad's disqualification, but the fact that Zahalka "sat there and said the party was in daily contact with Azmi Bishara" made him change his mind.
"Labor's conduct in this affair was patriotic," he added, "we had to make a statement that the Balad heads cannot be permitted to incite against Israeli democracy and act against it."
Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On slammed Labor and Kadima for backing the disqualification, saying the parties were "conducting their election campaign not only on the backs of the Palestinians in Gaza, but also on the backs of the Israeli-Arabs. This is cheap politics."
The HaBayit HaYehudi party responded to the election committee's decision by saying, "We hope that the High Court justices have learned the lessons from the Bishara episode and won't overturn the election committee's decision because this will aid Hamas and Hizbullah open a branch in the Knesset," said the party.
The Yesha rabbinical council praised the decision, saying, "The parties are a fifth column in the State of Israel." The council also said that disqualifying the parties is not sufficient and that "the right to vote must be denied to all those supporting terror against the Jewish people."
Sharon Roffe-Ofir, Efrat Weiss, and Kobi Nahshoni contributed to this report
***
Mazuz considering indicting Balad MK for Syria visit
AG may charge Said Naffa with visiting enemy state, contacting a foreign agent, in light of unauthorized visit to Damascus in September 2007. Decision pends hearing; Naffa claims political persecution
Aviad Glickman
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz informed Knesset Member Said Naffa (Balad) that his 2007 visit to Syria may result in a criminal indictment. The decision is pending a hearing.
Naffa was told Sunday that he may face charges of contacting a foreign agent, aiding a visit to an enemy state and visiting an enemy state.
Harassment?
MK Naffa claims political persecution over Syria visits / Sharon Roffe-Ofir
Balad MK says talks with Syria prove continuing police investigations of his visits to Damascus are politically motivated, adds probes will not hinder his future visits to Syria
Full story
The Balad MK told Ynet that Mazuz's decision was nothing but political persecution: "I helped Druze clergymen exercise their legitimate right to visit the holy places (in Syria). I guess it's still a taboo as far as the government is concerned."
Naffa visited Syria in September of 2007, and according to suspicions met with Talal Naji – deputy secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as well as with Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal. He is also suspected of illegally aiding 300 people obtain permits to enter Syria.
Naffa denied having met Naji or Mashaal while in Syria, saying that "the accusation is an outright lie. If I wanted to meet them I would have done so in public. The entire visit has been documented and no such meeting took place."
He maintained that the entire case was motivated by political persecution; and sources within his camp said that the State is deliberately "targeting" members of the Druze community.
Mazuz's decision was reportedly made after consultations with State Prosecutor Moshe Lador, the State Prosecutor's Office, the police and other relevant law enforcement officials.
The final decision on whether or not to indict Naffa is pending a judicial hearing, in which the Knesset member would be able to present his case to Mazuz.
Naffa, who is one of the candidates in the Balad Party's primaries, which will be held later this week, said Mazuz's announcement had no bearing on his political plans: "If elected, I'll be a part of the party's Knesset roster. I'll make the decision about the hearing in the next few days," he said.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General's Office announced Sunday that it would be closing the cases against MK Ahmad Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al) and Balad MKs Wasil Taha and Jamal Zahalka, who were investigated for trips to Lebanon and Syria in 2005 and 2006.
Mazuz noted that unlike Naffa, Tibi, Wasil and Zahalka were investigated only for traveling without a permit, adding that given the time passed, indictments were unwarranted, but nevertheless, their matter would be turned over to the Knesset's Ethics Committee.
Sharon Roffe-Ofir contributed to this report
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3638414,00.html
Monday, January 12, 2009
Norwegian anti-Israel (anti-Jewish) "activists"
. . . [a] Norwegian pair of doozies, carrying on the Norwegian tradition of being against Jews and Israel, no matter what
or
Two more Marxists joining with Islamic world in hating Jews and America.
. . . are these Norwegians indeed non-partisan foreigners providing independent confirmation of Palestinian reports or do they have an agenda? Is Gilbert simply someone "who was allowed into Gaza last week to give emergency medical aid, and who has worked in many conflict zones," as the New York Times introduces him or someone with a partisan perspective?
Gilbert is a radical Marxist and a member of the political Red (Rodt) party, a revolutionary socialist party in Norway. He has been a pro-Palestinian activist since the 1970's and travelled to Lebanon in support of the Palestinians during the first Lebanon war in 1982. He has long been a vocal opponent of Israel and the U.S. Gilbert has acknowledged that he cannot separate politics from medicine, stating, "there is little in medicine that is not politics." He even criticizes the group Doctors Without Borders for providing medical assistance to both sides in a conflict instead of taking a strong stance and supporting only one party. In a 2006 article in Nordlys, journalist Ivan Kristoffersen lamented the fact that Gilbert allows his humanitarian efforts to be politicized by his radical agenda.
***
The source of most of the information coming from Gaza thus far has been from Palestinian representatives. One of the only non-Palestinian voices heard has been that of Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor who entered Gaza on December 31 along with his colleague Erik Fosse ostensibly to provide medical assistance to Palestinians at Shifa Hospital. They have become media stars as the BBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, Independent, Sky News, and New York Times, among others, have turned to them as independent foreign observers to provide a presumably non-partisan perspective. They have been extensively interviewed in the Norwegian as well as the world press. In fact, Gilbert appears in so many interviews that one wonders how he has the time to provide medical help, never mind "doing surgery around the clock" as he claims.
In his interviews, Gilbert decries what he claims is Israel's "all out war against civilians." Condemning Israel for "deliberately targeting the [Palestinian] population" and causing "a man-made disaster," Gilbert and Fosse claim that Israel and the UN are lying about the civilian casualty count and feed the media their own alternate statistics ( "50% of the casualties are women and children"–CBS; "children made up 25% of the deaths and 45% of the wounded"–BBC). Gilbert is even quoted by the Iranian Press TV alleging the Israelis have used unconventional weapons against the Palestinians.
from Finnish Paper Iltalehti Spreads More of 'Mad' Mads Gilbert's Anti-Israel Propaganda.......
See how easy it is? All you need is a lab coat and Kafiyyeh wrapped around your neck and you are the fountain of credible information and the most hotly sought after Western voice in Gaza. No wonder the international media types are hell bent on getting in, 'MAD' Mads Gilbert is getting all of the glory, and they want their fair share of anti-Israel bashing as well
The blood libel on the paper's front page reads:
Doctors: Israel tests new weapons in Gaza
OVER 900 DEAD
Gaza is a testing field
It's all really quite sick minded when you think about it, the old blood libels against Jews as being inhuman and blood thirsty, has never really gone away in Europe. While Hamas uses it's own people as human shields, these idiot journalists print crap that would have been left on the cutting room floor during an earlier age. The media has lost all of its common sense. KGS
Posted by KGS at 9:50 PM
Labels: Anti-Israel bias, Finnish media, iltalehti, media bias
and back to http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=35&x_article=1580:
[Norwegian doctor Erik] Fosse worked as a doctor for the Palestine Committee in Lebanon in the 1970's. He now leads NORWAC, the Norwegian Aid Committee. According to Aftenposten, Fosse's passion to work on behalf of Palestinians was sparked by his time in Lebanon.
According to Verdens Gang, the largest Norwegian daily, Gilbert and Fosse's current trip to Gaza is funded by the Norwegian foreign ministry.
Given the partisan — and in Gilbert's case, radical — perspective they represent, Fosse's and Gilbert's testimony must be weighed with extreme caution.
from Norwegian Doctors in Gaza: Objective Observers or Partisan Propagandists?
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=35&x_article=1580
Also see Norway - a paradigm for anti-Semitism
Saturday, January 10, 2009
I DO NOT regret the loss of "Palestinian" lives
--The Last Angry Mensch (A Boston Supports Israel...Rally?)
For my part, I do not regret the loss of "Palestinian" (Arab) life.
Why not?
Am I a monster? An unfeeling creature who equates this defensive long-past-due incursion into the territory of a vicious enemy that kills and seeks to kill all Jews, men, women, children, babies, regardless of whether they wear an Israeli military uniform with the commanded biblical extermiations of enemies?
First of all, this long-past-due Gaza incursion is nothing like the biblical conflicts. Great care is taken--only on the part of the Israelis to spare non-combatant human life. The enemy of Israel is provided with supplies--food and mediacal--and the enemy wounded are treated at Israeli hospitals.
But let's face it: they--the Gazan Hamas "Palestinians"--asked for it. Innocent civilians? They elected Hamas--an entity sworn to destroy Israel and kill Jews to be their representative leadership.
Under Hamas auspices (as it had been under Fatah auspices before the election of Hamas) rockets have been and are being lobbed into Israel.
There is no "Palestinian" opposition to this policy. To kill all the Jews they can appears to be the goal of every "Palestinian" Arab Moslem inhabitant of Gaza.
Do you expect me to shed tears for "Palestinian" Gazan life being lost when Israel after being goaded for so long finally decided to remove the rocket-lobbers?
Did I cry, wring my hands, and regret German lives lost during the Allied bombing of German targets during world war II?
Hardly. And mind you, not every German then was a Nazi and complicit in killing Jews?
Still, Jews bemoan the fact that you cannot fight a war--that is being forced on you--without the loss of enemy lives.
Look at this:
from Solomonia, Jan. 9, 2009
Last night Temple Mishkan Tefilah in Newton seemed more like “The Massachusetts State Democratic Convention, The Sequel” than a rally in support of Israel which was what its billing announced. Originally scheduled as a mid-winter AIPAC meeting, the evening was highlighted by appearances, among others, by Governor Deval Patrick and Bob Haynes, the President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. The Master of Ceremonies was Steve Grossman, former President of AIPAC and former national chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
To a SRO crowd of approximately a thousand people, the speakers affirmed their commitment to the continued existence of the State of Israel and lamented the loss of civilian life, as Mr. Grossman put it, “both Palestinian and Israeli.” The evening was obviously transformed into an evening of Israel support in the face of the too-many-to-count angry and, frankly, bloodthirsty demonstrations put on by International ANSWER, the Marxist front group that has bonded with Muslim extremists. ANSWER’s street theatre, oddly enough, does not feature ecumenical deploring of violence “on both sides.” (Continue Reading This Article)
Friday, January 9, 2009
Stop Complaining About “Double Standards”
It is futile complaining about the media or about various nations using double standards in their negative portrayal of Israel vis-à-vis Hamas terrorists. Such complaints will have no effect on the Jew-hatred evident in Israel’s detractors. Besides, such complaints are self-demeaning when uttered by Jews. Let me suggest another approach via Friedrich Nietzsche.
In The Dawn of Day, Nietzsche exalts like no other gentile, "The People of Israel." Here is a very small sample:
In Europe they have gone through a school of eighteen centuries, such as no other nation can boast of … In consequence whereof the resourcefulness in soul and intellect of our modern Jews is extraordinary… their heroism in the spernere se sperni [despising their despisers] surpass the virtues of all the saints.
The attitude Israel must develop when maligned by the media or by the spokesmen of any nation is to despise Israel’s despisers, indeed, to regard them as beneath contempt. Do not seek the approval of the “goyim.” Israel is at war. Just do: devastate, defeat, and disarm the enemy by swift, awesome, and uninterrupted attacks. This is the teaching of the classics on war.
Those who denigrate Israel vis-à-vis Hamas—a terrorist organization that uses women and children as human shields—are primitive or uncivilized human beings who adorn their barbarism in the aura of a religion that rejects the idea of human rights.
If other people do not see this, they are not misinformed: they are sick, pathological human beings, and it’s not your business to enlighten and heal them. You are soldiers, not academics or priests or social workers.
To Israel’s political echelon I say: The liberal-left thinks that the use of might in defense of right is morally suspect. The liberal-left is suffering from a mental disorder. Don’t waste your time trying to win them over.
Normal people love a winner, and they are not overly concerned about how you win. So go ahead and win: win as big as you can, and forget about your public image. Stop all thus drivel about being humanitarians. Don’t worry about UN condemnations or even about sanctions. As I have elsewhere shown, there are big corporations in the USA that sell tens of billions of dollars worth of military hardware to Arab states—thanks to Israel.
Israel has enormous power. But if Israel’s government thinks small and acts small, then Israel will be treated like a banana republic.
So stop complaining about double standards. Make winning your standard, and despise those who favor the losers.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Only Realistic Solution How to Solve the Palestinian Problem
Submitted by Prof. Paul Eidelberg (Israel), Jan 7, 2009 at 03:34
A large majority of the so-called Palestinians reject Israel's existence. Indeed, they have taught a generation of Arab children to hate Jews and Israel and to emulate suicide bombers. Surely this is why Daniel Pipes sagaciously said a few years ago that it would take at least two generations to undo the murderous hatred that has been instilled in the Arab inhabitants of what is called the West Bank.
Hence, to propose a Palestinian state united with Jordan is a non-starter. This would not only threaten Jordan, whose population is mostly "Palestinian," but it would also threaten Israel, since it would give the Arabs control of the Judean-Samarian highlands overlooking Israel's coastal plain on which some 75% of Israel's population lives.
I have a more realistic though by no means a quick-fix solution: make Israel more Jewish, which would increase its attachment to Eretz Israel, dampen Arab-nationalist ambitions, and prompt "Palestinians" to emigrate to Arab lands. Here is only a small part—the institutional part—of the plan which I have elsewhere formulated.
Merely by making members of Israel's Knesset individually accountable to the voters in constituency elections would go a long way in making the country more Jewish. This follows from the fact that a large majority of the electorate—at least 75 percent—is more traditionally oriented than the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government, which make the policies and laws of the State.
Personal, direct election of Knesset Members alone will make public opinion more influential on the deliberations and decisions of the Knesset, since the election and reelection of MKs will be more dependent on the beliefs and values of their constituents, which most Jews derive from Israel's religious heritage. Let me elaborate.
First, ever since the establishment of the State, no party has ever won a majority of seats in the Knesset, and no Labor- or Likud- or Kadima-led government has ever been toppled by a Knesset vote of no confidence. The Knesset, sovereign in theory, is in practice subservient to the Government. This allows prime ministers to ignore the Knesset even on matters affecting the borders of the State, which is why certain parties call for a national referendum on territorial issues.
Second, although a large majority of Israel's Jewish population is either orthodox or traditional, the parliamentary representation of Israel's major parties has never reflected the proportion of religious, traditional, and secular Jews in this country. This is a direct consequence of a very low parliamentary electoral threshold, which has enabled citizens of various religious and secular persuasions to form their own parties. The resulting multiplicity of parties in the Knesset produces a farrago of parties in the cabinet whose rivalry renders it virtually impossible for the Government to pursue—even if it were inclined to pursue—coherent Jewish policies.
Third, under this system, diverse party leaders become cabinet ministers and dominate the Knesset. Having different agendas, the parties forming the cabinet do so, as David Ben-Gurion said, "not on the basis of a common program but merely to divide up the positions of influence and the national budget." Moreover, since Knesset Members are not individually elected by or accountable to the voters, those who become cabinet ministers can ignore the convictions of the public with impunity.
Let me put this another way: Representation is often defined as having one's views reflected in the legislative decision-making process. Representation may also be defined as having one's views reflected in actually enacted policies of government. The first raises the question: How well does the mode of election enable the national electorate to impress its opinions on the legislature? The second raises the question: How well do the actually executed policies of the government represent the opinions of the national electorate?
Now it so happens that Israel's single countrywide elections with fixed party lists cannot but insulate Knesset Members from the voters between elections. Hence the "representational bond" between MKs and voters is weak. This is especially true of cabinet ministers, since they occupy safe seats on their party's list. It follows that Israel's method of electing members of the Knesset does not enable the electorate to impress its opinions and conviction effectively on the legislative process nor on the actually executed policies of the government. This not only diminishes the democratic character of the state, but also its Jewish character as well—for reasons already mentioned.
If Israel had regional elections, where the people could vote for individual candidates rather than for a party slate, the representational bond between MKs and constituents would be relatively strong. The electorate would thus be more capable of impressing its opinions and convictions on the Knesset and on actually enacted government policies. The resulting constraints on elected officials would make the country more Jewish, since more than 50% of Israel's Jewish population are traditional Jews while another 25% are orthodox, it follows that making the country more democratic by means of district elections would make it more Jewish.
Thus far I have mentioned only institutional means of making Israel more Jewish hence of increasing Jewish commitment to the Land of Israel. This will profoundly influence the territorial ambitions of Arabs West of the River Jordan and prompt many to leave, especially if given economic incentives. Here, an Epilog is in order..
Epilog
The American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG) (www.aidrg.com) revealed in 2006 that Israel does not need to retreat from Judea and Samaria to secure Jewish demography. The study shows that the Arab population in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem is no more than 2.4 million. Since those registered as Jews in Israel comprise almost 80% of Israel's population, they make up a 59% majority with Gaza and Judea and Samaria and a solid 67% majority with Judea and Samaria without Gaza!
Moreover, the American and Israeli researchers found that Jewish fertility rates are steadily increasing while Arab fertility rates are steadily decreasing. So, not only is there no demographic time bomb necessitating the surrender of Judea and Samaria to Palestinian terrorists, but Israel's demographic position should encourage its government to develop a strategy for annexing Judea and Samaria.
Furthermore, the American researchers recommend a multi-district voting system divided along the lines of the Interior Ministry's administrative partition of the country. It turns out that with regional elections, Jews will form large majorities in every administrative district in the country except the northern district, where Arabs comprise a bare 52% majority. But the internal migration of just 52,000 Jews to the North would overturn that majority.
Finally, since 1997, not only has Jewish population growth exceeded Arab growth in Judea and Samaria, but average Arab net emigration from these areas has ranged between 10-20,000 per year and has been rising sharply because of the kleptocracy of the Palestinian Authority. An internal migration of approximately 150,000 Jews to Judea and Samaria would give them strong Jewish majorities. Since the Tel Aviv district has a 99% Jewish majority and the central region of the country has a 92% Jewish majority, it would be easy to facilitate such a migration of Jews from these crowded areas.
http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/147245
Kudos for Daniel Pipes
Israel's Strategic Incompetence in Gaza
by Daniel Pipes
Commentary on the Israel-Hamas war has tended toward partisan pleading, making the moral case for or against Israel. That's a crucial debate but not the only one; there's also a need for a cool strategic assessment; who is winning, who is losing?
Hillel Frisch argues that Hamas (which he calls "a small isolated movement that controls a small strip") has "grossly miscalculated" by antagonizing the Egyptian government and making war on Israel. He concludes Hamas has embarked on "strategic suicide."
Perhaps, but scenarios exist in which Hamas gains. Khaled Abu Toameh notes the powerful and growing support for Hamas around the Middle East. Caroline Glick notes two ways Hamas wins: a return to the status quo ante, with Hamas still in charge of Gaza, or a ceasefire agreement whereby foreign powers form an international monitoring regime to oversee Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt.
As this suggests, an assessment of Hamas' war record depends primarily on decisions made in Jerusalem. Those decisions being the real issue, how well has Israel's leadership performed?
Disastrously. Jerusalem's profound strategic incompetence continues and heightens the failed policies since 1993 that have eroded Israel's reputation, strategic advantage, and security. Four main reasons lead me to this negative conclusion.
First, the team in charge in Jerusalem created the Gaza problem. Its leader, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert immortally explained in 2005 the forthcoming unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza: "We [Israelis] are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies."
Olmert had a vital role in (1) initiating the Gaza withdrawal, which ended the Israel Defense Forces' close control of the territory, and (2) giving up Israeli control over the Gaza-Egypt border. This latter, little noted decision, enabled Hamas to build tunnels to Egypt, smuggle in matériel, and launch missiles into Israel.
Secondly, Olmert and his colleagues failed to respond to the barrage of rockets and mortar shells. From the Israeli withdrawal in 2005 until now, Hamas has launched over 6,500 missiles into Israel. Incredibly, Israelis endured nearly eight attacks a day for three years; why? A responsible government would have responded to the first rocket as a casus belli and immediately responded.
Thirdly, a committee of the French parliament published an important technical report in mid-December, establishing that "there is no longer doubt" about the military purposes of the Iranian nuclear program, and that it will be up and running in 2-3 years.
The waning days of the Bush administration, with the current president nearly out the door and the president-elect yet in the wings, offers a unique moment to take care of business. Why did Olmert squander this opportunity to confront the relatively trivial danger Hamas presents rather than the existential threat of Iran's nuclear program? This negligence has potentially dire repercussions.
Finally, from what one can discern of the Olmert government's goal in its war on Hamas, it seems to be to weaken Hamas and strengthen Fatah so that Mahmoud Abbas can re-take control of Gaza and re-start diplomacy with Israel. Michael B. Oren and Yossi Klein Halevi captured this idea in a recent article title: "Palestinians need Israel to win: If Hamas gets away with terror once again, the peace process will be over."
Bitter experience, however, invalidates this thesis. For one, Fatah has proven itself a determined enemy intent on eliminating the Jewish state. For another, Palestinians themselves repudiated Fatah in 2006 elections. It strains credulity that anyone could still think of Fatah as a "partner for peace." Rather, Jerusalem should think creatively of other scenarios, perhaps my "no-state solution" bringing in the Jordanian and Egyptian governments.
More dismaying even than Olmert's ineptitude is that the Israeli election a month from now pits three leaders of his same ilk. Two of them (Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak) currently serve as his main lieutenants, while two (Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu) failed badly in their prior prime ministerial stints.
Looking beyond Olmert and his potential successors comes the worst news of all, namely that no one at the upper echelons of Israel's political life articulates the imperative for victory. For this reason, I see Israel as a lost polity, one full of talent, energy, and resolve but lacking direction.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
© 2008 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
MUMBAI: MUSLIMS MERCILESSLY TORTURED THE VICTIMS, JEWS GOT IT THE WORST
from Atlas Shrugs
I am angry. I am sick in my soul. The West refuses to engage this enemy that has declared all out war on our civilization. The media, the UN, the political elites bow to Islam. They refuse to speak its name. They refuse to stop immigration. They are afraid.
I am not afraid. I AM CALLING FOR NEW LEGISLATION -"Mumbai legislation". Rollback all pending legislation on gun control. Rollback all gun control, effective immediately. If the Indians had been armed the Muslims would have been stopped dead in their tracks. If this photographer had been armed, he would have shot jihadis and not the pictures of he blood lust in their eyes.
Would pious NY cops react the same way?
more at http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/11/mumbai-muslims.html
Can a "Palestinian" Change his Hate?
Need you ask?
of Jews, as if you didn't already know.
No matter how civilized they look or act, underneath rages the Islamic beast of rage.
Gates of Vienna: The Odense Shooter: A Model Citizen
Aching for another Holocaust . . .
"bleeding" for the so-called "Palestinians" of Gaza . . . a Jew-hating rabble alive only to kill Jews and turn Israel into a cesspit as they have done to Gaza . . .
And The World Turns A Blind Eye.
from Radarsite
Cross posted by Findalis of Monkey in the Middle
In the 1930's the world turned a blind eye on to what Hitler's Germany was doing to its Jewish population. Anti-semitism was acceptable in all nations, and the majority of people in most nations wished they could do the same.
Then came the Holocaust and the world was shamed into a more civilized manner. Anti-semitism was the venue for the fridge on the very far right, the neo-Nazis, the Skinheads, the KKK.
Not any more.
For it has raised its ugly head. Not only in Muslim nations where it is state policy, but in every nation in Europe, Canada and now the United States. Outside of Israel, there is no nation in this world that a Jew is truly safe. Continue
AND
pay attention from the same post
a plan to attack Synagogues
disrupt services
by a lickspittle
a lackey (or better said buttboy)
of the Islamic holocaust drive
going by the name "James Petras" who says:
I have strongly suggested to many different so-called action groups, that we immediately institute a program of visits to every synagogue in the USA, on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, and rise in each congregation and - in dignified firm and unemotional voices - repeat “STOP THE KILLING”– We need to go in groups of 3-4, to insure that we have 1 person as a defensive shield, and one as a video camera witness, recording everything.
Jews especially should be doing these actions. We will face harsh treatment, and possibly physical attack, but our message must be resolute and continue week after week.
I see no possible legal impediment to this. The public, and certainly Jews- cannot be barred from entry to the services, and it will be extremely hard for the Synagogues to enforce exclusion. If they do, we can speak on the front steps, on the street, in the parking lot.
The Jews of America must be confronted with their clear responsibility- far more than complicity-in the mass murders, occupation, and forced starvation of the people of Palestine.
READ THE ORIGINAL WITH COLOR EMPHASIS AND LINKS AND E-MAIL CONTACTS . . .
at http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2009/01/and-world-turns-blind-eye.html
Suicide by Israel (like suicide by cop)
from Israpundit
A policeman’s nightmare is the prospective suicide who forces the constable to shoot in self-defense. No matter how justified the killing, others always will wonder whether the shooter had an opportunity to avoid a fatal outcome.
Peoples commit suicide as much as do individuals. The geopolitical cognate of “suicide by policeman” is Hamas’ attempted suicide by Israel. Israel’s objective is to eliminate Hamas rule. There are only two ways to do that: destroy Hamas’ international support, or make its rule in Gaza insupportable.
I hate to be the one to bring up the unpleasant things that no one else wants to talk about, but just what do you do when a substantial group of people would rather die on their feet than live on their knees? For Hamas, to live on one’s knees would be to accept a permanent Jewish presence in the historic land of Israel, an outcome which Hamas was formed to prevent in the first place.
One answer is that a slow-motion humanitarian disaster will gradually erode the fighting capacity and morale of Hamas and its popular base in Gaza, presuming that external sources of support can be throttled. What the International Red Cross calls “a full-blown humanitarian crisis” in Gaza is, in a certain sense, part of the solution, not part of the problem. A million and a half people have no way to live in Gaza except on the dole of the international community, in a Petrie dish for Islamist extremism. (Continue Reading this Article)
Hatred, Arab Style
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Israel is at war. Hence, it is of crucial importance for Israeli politicians and journalists to understand and relate appropriately to Israel’s enemy, especially what the enemy thinks of Jews. For this purpose, allow me to recall what happened some ten years ago when a Jewish reserve soldier, Shmuel Meiri, was lynched by Arabs in Ramallah. I do so because the photographs taken of the faces of his Arab assailants convey a hatred of visceral and demonic proportions. This hatred reminded me of what has been said of the feelings of Muslims Chechens toward Russians.
Writing on the subject in The New York Times (December 18, 1994), Steven Erlanger quotes the celebrated Russian author Leo Tolstoi.
Tolstoi writes of the Russian destruction of a Chechen village: “The emotion felt by every Chechen, old and young, was stronger than hatred. It was not hatred, it was a refusal to recognize these Russian dogs as men at all, and a feeling of such disgust [and] revulsion ... that the urge to destroy them—like the urge to destroy rats, venomous spiders, or wolves—was an instinct as natural as self-preservation.” This aptly describes what Muslims feel toward Jews, as was evident in the faces of the Arabs who lynched Shmuel Meiri.
There is a streak of paganism in their boundless hatred. Let me describe how the late Syrian president Hafaz Assad celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. He had Syrian militia girls killing four-foot snakes with their teeth, blood running down their cheeks. The pieces were then roasted and served to Syrian militia men. The men subsequently twisted off the necks of puppies and drank their blood. This is what Arabs and Muslims think of and feel toward Jews.
Boundless hatred and contempt for Jews are fundamental ingredients of Arab-Islamic culture. True, one can find in the Quran occasional passages favorable to Jews. However, those who focus on, and draw conclusions from, such passages suffer from what the eminent psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan called “selective inattention.”
It is common knowledge that the jihad is a basic religious precept for Muslims. The Quran teaches them: “Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends” (Sura 5:50). “Allah does not forbid you to be kind and equitable to those who have neither made war on your religion nor driven you from your homes.... But he forbids you to make friends with those who have fought against you ... or abetted others who do so” (Sura 60:8-9). From this passage comes the necessity on the part of Arabs to describe Jews—and not only Jews—as “aggressors.” The Quran’s imperative on dealing with aggressors”? “Kill them wherever you find them” (Sura 2:190).
Moreover, according to the Quran, the Jews should be in a permanent state of humbleness; they should be paying tribute to the faithful (Sura 9:29). What troubles Muslims today is that the Jews now have an independent and flourishing and state of their own, a state whose military power is enormous. All the more reason for the Arabs’ boundless and genocidal hatred—which prompts Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s vow to “wipe Israel off the map.”
Nevertheless, there are Israeli politicians as well as American officials who believe that Arabs can live in abiding peace with Jews. I refer to those who advocate the “two-state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This willful refusal to face reality is of long-standing occurrence among Jews.
Thus, referring to the Jewish community (the Yishuv) in the pre-State period, Professor Gil Carl AlRoy observed: “One cannot help being astounded at the sheer determination with which the Yishuv for so long denied conflict with Arabs—in the face of conflict. There was an extraordinary tension here between the empirical world and personal and group conceptualization.” Even when conflict was admitted, Zionists explained it away by saying the “Arabs did not truly wish it, but were put up to it by others [their leaders],” Nor is this all.
Ponder an oft-quoted statement Ehud Olmert made in June 2005, when he was Deputy Prime Minister: “We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want … to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies. We want them to be our friends …” How boastful on the one hand, and yet so self-effacing on the other—and how different the mentality of Israel’s enemies.
In contrast to Olmert, the most humble Muslim is simply and incredibly proud. Writes AlRoy: “The illiterate Muslim, living in squalor and filth ... actually feel[s] as naturally superior to the Jew as English aristocrats would in olden days feel toward Cockneys ...”
Still, a picture often reveals more than words. Those who believe that Arabs can live in genuine peace with Jews in the Land of Israel should look at the faces the Arabs who lynched Shmuel Meiri. For them he was not a human being but a Jew—in their eyes something more repulsive than a rat or a venomous spider.
Unfortunately, this inexpungible fact will be ignored by the fools and opportunists now calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.